


AT & T Had it Wrong

by blcwriter



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Angst, Divorce, Infidelity, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Prompt Fic, fic import
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 18:16:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://1297.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://1297.livejournal.com/"><b>1297</b></a>  wrote "<a href="http://community.livejournal.com/stxi_sinfest/2909.html?thread=494173#t494173">Forever hold your peace</a>" which was not the last word. Because she's so good to me, she followed it up with <a href="http://1297.livejournal.com/30439.html#cutid1">20th Century Boy</a>, .  I thought it was time Karl said his piece.  Lucky for me, 1297 agreed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	AT & T Had it Wrong

Author:  blcwriter  
Title:  AT & T Had it Wrong  
Rating/Warnings:  R, male sexings, language, infidelity  
Disclaimer:  Not ours.  But our handbasket to hell has peaches and bourbon and epic reading material.  
Summary: [](http://1297.livejournal.com/profile)[**1297**](http://1297.livejournal.com/) wrote "[Forever hold your peace](http://community.livejournal.com/stxi_sinfest/2909.html?thread=494173#t494173)" which was not the last word. Because she's so good to me, she followed it up with [20th Century Boy](http://1297.livejournal.com/30439.html#cutid1), . I thought it was time Karl said his piece.  Lucky for me, 1297 agreed.  
  
  
  
\--  
  
 _This isn't it_ \-- he had texted, because Chris forbade him to talk. He'd meant it, even if he hadn't had the courage to say it.  
  
\--  
  
Both kids have swine flu-- not enough for hospitalization. She hopes Karl's had his shot, Natalie says, since she's off to a shoot for two weeks. Her suitcase stands by the door.  
  
"By the way," she says, slapping down papers on the side table where Karl's _just_ ditched his keys. "I want a divorce."  
  
Right. He'd known it was coming-- asked for it without speaking, in fact-- when he called Chris from the terrace not a half hour after the last time he'd fucked his wife. Though perhaps it was less that and more how he pulled away each time Nat tried to share cigarettes. The idea of it not being Chris through the smoke, green eyes instead of blue through the haze-- it just seemed all wrong. It still did, envelope notwithstanding.  
  
"Lovely," he says. "Doctor's number up on the fridge?"  
  
She nods, arms crossed over her chest. Maybe she thinks he's going to put up a fight, right here, right now, with her already packed and ready to go and him just getting in.  
  
They've been ships passing for more than a while and he's been fooling himself to think he's _just_ fucking Chris because Chris is facing the other direction-- it's bull. He can see the _want_ in Chris' face plainly enough the rest of the time. He can feel the echoing tug in his chest all of the time. Some days he thinks it's going to rip him wide open. Lord knows he sounds like the suffering bastard he is when it's Chris' mouth on him or he's deep in his heat-- lord knows it's all he can do not to touch him each second they're anywhere near one another. Just the thought makes him hard, here in the hall with his wife and his kids' bright plastic toys cluttering the entry.  
  
When he and Nat don't make love, because that's not what they're doing, they fuck and pretend, they do it face-forward. It's easy to look over the other one's shoulder. She's been doing that for a while, he realizes just then-- since before he met Chris. It's not all Karl's fault. Chris looks back over his shoulder-- but it's always at Karl.  
  
"You know what?" He sets down his suitcase. She hasn't even given him time to do that. He's no innocent here, but still, all the same.  
  
He slides the papers out of the plain paper envelope after he undoes the clip and scans them with the eye of a man who's read enough movie contracts to know when he's being gypped. It's all fair enough and she's not even trying to screw him on the kids. He signs the lines and initials and dates, then slips them into the envelope, redoes the clip.  
  
It's a Hyatt pen in his hand. He slips it back into his pocket, next to his phone.  
  
"I'm going to call a realtor while you're away to see about selling the house. If you're going to be longer than two weeks let me know."  
  
She gapes and he suppresses a laugh-- not a mean one. Maybe semi-hysterical. If she didn't want him to sign-- Jesus, he's the actor here, not her, for fuck's sake.  
  
"That's it?" she says. Now she wants to talk.  
  
"Daddy?"  
  
Hunter enters the room, misery clad in Star Wars pyjamas.   
  
"Hey, kiddo," he says, turning away from his wife-- or whatever she is. "So you've gone and gotten all pig-sick on me, eh?"  
  
The kid nods like he's ashamed and done something wrong. Karl pulls him into a hug, his dirty-blond hair a shade darker than Chris' as it rests against the lower part of Karl's sternum.  
  
Nat's taxi honks.   
  
"This isn't it, Karl," she says, and her look is both angry and desperate. It's not the same kind of desperate as Chris. When Chris looks at him, jaw tight below woeful blue eyes, it means _I'm not going to ask, I have no right, but oh do I want you, I want you for you and whatever you'll give for as long as you'll stay._ At the same time, Chris would never do _this._ He'd rearrange the damn shoot. Hell, he picked Karl up at the airport this time after Karl basically dumped him, not that it lasted two miles from the airport, not the way the rearview mirror cast that shadowed grey light on Chris' face in the rain.  
  
Chris always lets go when it's time, no matter how tightly he grasps with nail-bitten hands 'til that very last second-- once Karl reaches out and touches again. He never asks questions-- his oblique observations aren't even fairly complaints, not in Karl's book. Karl's always the one who kisses and pushes and grabs and gives answers that promise at more before he goes back to someplace other than where Chris lives as home. He calls it home, too, right to Chris' face. Hell, Chris doesn't even say Karl's name when he comes, none of that needy shit-- he just gasps, eyes tightly closed like it's the most painful thing in the world. He clenches and trembles and shakes every time, like he's holding it in, trying to remember the feeling with every cell in his body. He always stays silent, never demands.  
  
"Yeah, Nat, it is," he says, flatly. Answering aloud in the negative when he should have said what he'd typed six hours ago-- except he's a coward and has a hard time saying no to Chris' requests, spoken or merely pled by those eyes.  
  
"What is, Dad?"  
  
He kisses his boy on the head and ushers him off to his room. "Your mother's missing her taxi, that's all."  
  
\--  
  
He gets his son back in bed, takes his temperature since it's something constructive to do and gets him something to drink, then checks on his youngest. He's sacked out and only mutters when Karl says hello. He reads all the pamphlets Nat's left out on the fridge, but it's nothing he doesn't already know from the studio nurses passing around-- they're a paranoid lot and take care of the stars, since one getting sick is a germ vector that can take down a whole film.   
  
There's no response to the text he sent Chris, not that Chris ever responds to Karl's vague little promises. When he does the math in his head he realizes it's three in the morning in L.A.. Even Chris is likely asleep.  
  
He's always put off the urge to call as soon as he's home, believing it's better for both-- absence making the heart less fond or something like that. It's bullshit. He yearns when he's gone and can't help but tear into Chris when he sees him again. It's not quite pathetic, most likely because the object is Chris and Chris is never deserving of pity, he's too ... beautiful or smart or something for that-- but the fact still remains. He hasn't ever called Chris the same night he's left.  
  
Right. He's never gotten divorced before, either.  
  
"Nnnnrph. Karl. What?"  
  
Chris sounds confused, and it all tumbles out of Karl's mouth all at once.  
  
"Hey. Sorry to wake you, I am, but look, I need to say some things and I want you to listen, okay? I kind of made some mistakes, what with never fucking you facing forwards except I was realizing today that it's kind of apropos because we see stuff from much the same perspective, we always have, right, seen eye to eye on things that really matter, even if you do like silly lattes and shit. I'm going to be back in town in three weeks, maybe four, I want ... if ... I miss you and I should've said it at the airport and ..."  
  
"Karl." There's a rough note to Chris' voice. "I told you not to."  
  
Before he can even protest, the electronic static recedes. His phone reads "communication concluded, 0:14."


End file.
